Try not to Die: Brightside by Mark Tullius and Dawna Gonzales is a wonderful concept. You dive into the town of Brightside and get to choose your storyline as you unravel the day. This was a fun read, and the narrator did a great job at keeping the audience engaged. I listened to every option because it was not as easy to skip around while listening. I feel this concept might be better as a physical/e book. The story itself made me want to learn about the strange place of Brightside, and I will be going back to read the other two books.

Thank you Net Galley, for my copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
#TryNottoDieInBrightside #NetGalley

Thank you Net Galley for this audio book in Exchange for a honest review.

Ok first and foremost it’s been decades since I read an interactive book where you skip to chapters after picking a path for your character.

That said I clearly would not have lived long in Brightside while trying to escape.
Pretty sure I died about 3 times before finally getting to the end.
After which I did listen to the book as is- with no reader choice.

That said while I did enjoy the book- I feel like soo much was left unsaid. I would have liked a back story for Brightside and it’s thought stealing residents. And the ending left me just wishing there’d be more.

Hopefully we’ll get a follow up to their life after Brightside...

** also I will say I’m wondering what happened to Twister and all the other boarded pets.....

This was a new experience for me, never having tried a choose your own adventure book/audiobook before. It is an interesting premise, and I have to admit I did die quite a few times!

I hadn't read the first Brightside book, but didn't feel that was a problem, However I did I find the book a little difficult to follow as I am often doing other things whilst listening to an audiobook, but felt that this one really needed my full attention, so not quite as relaxing as most audiobooks.

It's an interesting concept, but I didn't feel that audio was the right format for this sort of book.

I died way to many times to admit. My first option and I died. I guess I am not as good at these as I thought I was. I really am looking forward to the next one!

I wasn't overly impressed with the book. I love choose-your-adventure style books, but listening to them is a bit more difficult. For one thing, you can't be doing anything else, like dishes or driving. You have to be ready to skip to the appropriate chapter if you need to make a decision.

As far as the book itself, the narrator needs a little more emotion. It was like hearing Ben Stein read. An actual voice cast would have been nice.

If you have nothing to do for a while, it's worth a try.

This is a really neat book idea. I love the concept of this. You get to pick and choose the chapters that you believe would be the right decision to make in order to stay alive. Fantastic book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free access to the audio book.
I wasn't sure how exactly this book would progress. I had the old choose-your-own-adventure in my head and was several chapters in before I caught on. I need to pay better attention.
In fact it was a unique twist on the choose-your-own idea. You were given choices at the end of each chapter, though in this version, if you choose the wrong one, you die! Several different ways, in fact.
I took most of it straight through because it was difficult to suddenly have to drop what I was doing, turn the phone back on, find the chapters, scroll down, and hit one. So, for me, it really didn't work as an audio book.
But I really liked the story and the concept, so 4 stars.

What a ride Brightside was. I was not expecting it. I loved how you could choose what scenario played out. Something about “what if’s” is so appealing.Living in Brightside is not a walk in the park. You have to be careful in everything you do including what you are thinking. No one has ever escaped. Be prepared to take an exciting, ride through your choices. The book itself was quick and it felt a little rushed in away. I really didn’t like that you could make the wrong decision but I get it. Real life has wrong decisions and some could cost you highly.

In this audiobook we are placed in the shoes of our main character, Becky, taking on the decisions she is faced with as she tries to successfully escape Brightside. As someone who devoured the Choose Your Own Adventure series as a child, this was something I was looking forward to - though as an audiobook it was quite a strange experience.
First of all, as someone who had not read Brightside (which ties in with this) I did feel somewhat at a disadvantage. It was evident Becky wanted to escape this town, but I knew nothing about it, the people who lived there/policed it or the reasons for Becky being there in the first place. Had I known this background information, some things might have made a little more sense.
As it was, the decisions come thick and fast early on. I admit, without shame, that pretty much every choice I made early on (going off intuition alone) resulted in me dying in various grisly and gruesome ways. Suffice to say, Brightside is not a place that sounds welcoming at all...and I can fully understand why you'd want to leave it if you could.
Once events were underway, and we were following Becky on the course she was meant to be following, the story introduced us to a number of characters and yet I always felt there was something missing.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this, and I am intrigued enough to look at Brightside if I can get my hands on a copy.

I'm sure for some people this is a wonderful book and a fun way to interact with a story, however, I am not one of those people. When I listen to a book, I am working on something else or riding in my car. I do not want to have to select what comes next in an audiobook. I do have to say when I was a child I enjoyed the Choose Your Own Adventure books, but this is very different when you are talking audiobooks.

I know you can listen to the entire book by moving to chapter 55, but when I did this, it did not seem to fit the first part of the story for which I had been listening. The beginning of the book grabbed my attention, but I was not going to take the time to choose a pathway.

The narrator was good and helped to engage me in the storyline during the first chapter.

This is a choose your own adventure novel that accomplishes what it sets out to do. every chapter ends where the reader must choose what to do next, and if you choose wrong the character dies. I enjoyed this setup, even on the audiobook, which surprised me. It wasn't easy to choose what choice would keep you alive, which is what I'm looking for in a try not to die, choose your own adventure story.

The actual story was pretty engaging if a little basic. The story follows a woman attempting to escape from a facility that's prisoners can read minds.

If you are looking to try to survive as you read this spooky season, I think that TNTD: In Brightside won't be disappointing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed playing this adventure game with my 13 year old son. We listened to a few chapters each night and it had us talking at the end of each chapter to decide where we would take the story. Unfortunalty we made the wrong choices often and kept dying! It was great that it let you go back and re-choose so we coudl continue the game.

A brilliant idea!

The narration was clear and easy to understand.

I'm generally am not a huge fan of audio books. I struggle to take in the information and often get distracted by the activity I am doing at the same time and stop actually listening to the book . Its a shame that I struggle to listen to them because I would get to read/listen to a lot more of the wonderful books that are in the world and I would probably get a lot more work done !

I decided that I would give an audio book a try. I was browsing audio books and I came across Try not to die: In Brightside and discovered something wonderful . It was a choose your own adventure book !!!!!!!!. I really enjoyed the story. The choices were often hard and the best choices were not always obvious.

It was a little confusing to start with as you have no idea what is going on but the story soon captures your imagination and keeps you guessing.

I am really looking forward to the Sequel ,Beyond Brightside that will be out later this year.

Many thanks to Netgalley , Vincere press and the authors  Mark Tullius and Dawna Gonzales for sending me a copy of this audio in return for an honest review.

All thoughts and opinions are my own and are in no way influenced by the nature in which I received this book.

My review with more information about this book is available on my blog :thetwoquills.wordpress.com

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for the advance copy of this audiobook!

I loved this book. The atmosphere was everything I wanted it to be. It had spook factors and a few chills and I loved it. The plot and storyline in the book were great. I loved the characters in this story. It gave me all the feels I was looking for when I started reading this. I highly recommend this author. I loved the writing. I will be looking for other works in the future from this author.

I saw this on Netgalley and having never read an interactive audiobook before decided to give it a go. It’s essentially a choose your own adventure book, although it did feel a lot more limited as instead of branching story paths you had to find the correct path or die!

I liked the basic premise but found the execution to be a bit lacking as I didn’t really care for the characters (and thus their fates), the story was a bit dull and there were numerous plot holes.

To be honest I found this to be mediocre, I only finished it as I was interested in the concept however with a bit more work this could’ve been fun.

I enjoyed the uniqueness of this audiobook as it brought me back to my childhood and one of my favourite types of books as a kid - choose your own adventure books. I was hooked on those books as a kid and was thrilled to have the opportunity to listen along to Try Not to Die: In Brightside.

I loved following along this audiobook and making the many difficult decisions that you must make at the end of each chapter. Sometimes you are tasked with choosing one of two options, and sometimes it was on in three options, which makes it that much more difficult, because if you choose the wrong answer you die, then have to select a different choice. Each choice you make is unique in the sense that the story changes with each choice that you make. I love that about this book!

A definite must-add that I recommend you add to you TBR.

This is a fast paced, suspense filled adventure where Becky, her brother and other residents are trying to escape a horrific town called Brightside.

The book is an interactive book with lots of twists and it is loaded with the right amount of sarcasm 👌🏽. Loved it and want more.

Narration👌🏽

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Used to really love these kinds of books as a kid (though this one has "right" choices and i dont recall the books i read being like that but its been a while), its just really hard for me to do the pick your adventure thing with audiobooks :/ and the netgalley app is especially bad at skipping things but luckily they numbered the chapters for once. nor horrible but not my cup of tea either.

I received this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

I'm not a big fan of audiobooks so I think that's why I didn't enjoy it as much as I think I would've as a book. The plot was good and the characters were as well. 3 stars purely for the reason that I didn't enjoy it as a audiobook. I would definitely rate it higher if I had read it as a book

I love the choose your own adventure books and was super excited to see how entertaining it would be as an audiobook. This was a lot of fun and well narrated. You can choose your own version and/or choose the straight through version.